178 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



are distinctly different and offer variety to suit nearly 

 every taste. But if it is not enough, there is New 

 England to fall back upon, with her farmhouses of 

 far-extending kitchen wings, strung out sometimes be- 

 hind, sometimes at the side, but always along the way 

 that led to the far distant, single, huge building which 

 combined stable, storehouse, workshop and practically 

 all the rest under the comprehensive term of "bam." 

 This use of a "barn" — common now though it is in the 

 greater part of the country — is so different from the 

 undoubtedly wiser provision of older races that even 

 the dictionary takes note of its singularity, saying: 

 "In the United States a part of the barn is often used 

 for stable." Actually a barn is a covered, closed-in 

 place for storage, and never a shelter or dwelling for 

 livestock. 



The city plan of William Perm, with its stipulation 

 that each house shall stand in the middle, breadthwise, 

 of its plot, carries no suggestion of outside offices, 

 neither do the accounts of New Amsterdam nor of 

 Massachusetts Bay. But these all have to do with 

 towns ; and dwellers in the town, with none of the wide 

 range of domestic activities which the little world of a 

 plantation supported, would have no use for the many 

 office buildings of the great country seat. A stall for 

 a cow, one for a horse possibly, a small carriage shel- 

 ter and quarters for barndoor fowl, would meet the 



